Brexiteers against free movement?

OUT OF HOURS BULLY'S TRUCKSTOP BAR (INTERACTIVE)
61

Harry Monk:
And that this is the inevitable fate of UK domestic transport too if the eu ever finally manages to achieve its goal of free movement? I mean, why would anyone pay me or you £400+ a week to drive a truck if a Romanian/ Bulgarian haulier can get a driver to do it for £200 a week?

To be fair there doesn’t seem to be many Bulgarians wanting to do the crap building and local multi drop that makes up seemingly 85% of UK work anyway at any wage. :laughing:

While the EU seems hell bent on a nuclear fuelled nightmare in which there will be no place for long haul road transport anyway and all we’ll have to look forward to is being irradiated in a Chernobyl type disaster.

62

Harry Monk:

Franglais:
I have already said I agree that International road transport wages are stagnating. (Tues 7th at 11hr13)

I tried looking for some stats about specifically that, but it aint easy. I do have a life outside of TNUK! Honest! So, I looked at the ONS general graphs. Road Transport is part of that, but variation in that sector could be hidden in the whole its true.
However I think the general case tells an interesting story. True, we cant just separate it to all constituent sectors equally, but I think the general case shows none of the much discussed depression in wages caused by immigration. I dont say this effect is non-existent, and yes, maybe transport is more affected than other sectors.

I guess the difference between us is that you base your views on graphs found on the internet, whereas I base mine on evidence I see with my own eyes. I take it you are unaware, for example, that twenty years ago there was a thriving British international transport industry but now this is to all intents and purposes non-existent?

That a load from Liverpool to Lisbon, Malmo to Madrid, Bergen to Bergamo will all be undertaken by eastern European hauliers nowadays because of their totally different cost bases?

And that this is the inevitable fate of UK domestic transport too if the eu ever finally manages to achieve its goal of free movement? I mean, why would anyone pay me or you £400+ a week to drive a truck if a Romanian/ Bulgarian haulier can get a driver to do it for £200 a week?

Is that what you really want? To be no better than a cold and hungry 1950’s Soviet peasant standing outside his hovel, cheering and waving his red flag when Stalin’s motorcade sweeps through his village? Why don’t you abandon this mindless forelock-tugging devotion to your political masters and base your opinions on what effect the eu has actually had on your own life?

I think these issues are bigger than what I see with my own eyes. That`s why I look at graphs.
And why I read what others say here.

I dont think that the future of the UK should be dependent on what suits each of us individually. That is how Parliament has got its collective knickers in a twist at the moment isnt it? Too many small factions each pursuing a narrow selfish goal. Not enough looking at the bigger picture and the longer term. If you insist on my "back story", I am well aware of our former international transport history. After driving, and management jobs in UK haulage, I started driving internationally in 1989, and am still at it. Not playing silly buggers today, thank God, but Ive played tacho-disc frissbee in the past, Ive done the Friday night clearance out of Aosta or LaJonquera for the Saturday boat. It aint just internet graphs.
Can we say that was a Golden Age for us drivers?
In many respects, yes it was.
And now we have what some call “return to the norm”. Everything has ups and downs.
When youre in a deep pit of despair, it is good to know the only way is up. :smiley: It is equally true, but less comforting to think, when youre on top, the next step is likely downwards!
Sorry to say but the glory days of UK, and I reckon all European, transport are gone. There are still some good jobs and some interesting stuff going on, but it isnt as big as it was. Its spilt milk, get over it.

Wage stagnation. Thats where we started isnt it?
That FT article I linked seems to show that other EU countries are not showing the same problems, in that regard, as the UK is. They have the same rules about free movement of labour, but it doesnt affect their workers pay so much. So, we cant say it is simply the EUs fault can we? When Poland etc joined the Blair Gov decided to fast track the rules allowing those workers in. I agree that was a mistake. But that was a UK mistake not an EU mistake. Haulage rates are low now. But as the EE wages and conditions improve, so they will rise again. You and I maybe suffering now because of this. But this is life in the real world. Some or many of us suffer setbacks. At the moment its us.
If you think that any group of workers, (even we sanctified heroic truck drivers :smiley: ) are immune from competition and change, Im sad to say youre wrong. Introducing barriers will eventually lead to stagnation, not just of wages, but stagnation and death of a whole industry.

Ive not said there arent problems. I do say there will be further problems.
The thriving international industry we were both part of was based on expanding trade between the UK and Europe. Us leaving the EU and putting up fiscal, customs and other barriers won`t improve that at all.

The falling of the Iron Curtain meant there were millions of newly free people all wanting a slice of the Western pie. We could have been selfish and tried to keep em all out I spose, but how would that have ended? If you think the problems of underfed people coming in little boats over the Med are an issue, how would you view millions of fed, but hungry well armed people next door? People who saw on their TVs how well we doing. I don`t want to be melodramatic about it all, but think on the alternatives to letting the EE countries in. From where we are now, it may seem unlikely, but I really think it could easily have gone in another direction completely.

And I don`t go in for forelock tugging, by-the-by.
I refuse to take off my Wolfie Smith beret for anyone!
:smiley:

63

So, now I’m back and living in Rugby. I’m not impressed, but when needs must … :slight_smile:

Thatcher long ago implied there was no such thing as society. I know what she meant, but if she suddenly came back and saw what a society looked like when it abandoned its culture and values for an EU melting pot she’d be horrified. Additionally, out of the five people who share the house I’m in (One Brit, one Aussie, one Portuguese, one Latvian and me), three are on a minimum wage. As Harry Monk says, why would wages rise when you’ve got a willing pool of cheap disposable labour? Even if Brexit goes well and we get a government that gets to grips, the damage done is going to take another two generations to repair.

64

Grandpa:
Thatcher long ago implied there was no such thing as society. I know what she meant, but if she suddenly came back and saw what a society looked like when it abandoned its culture and values for an EU melting pot she’d be horrified. Additionally, out of the five people who share the house I’m in (One Brit, one Aussie, one Portuguese, one Latvian and me), three are on a minimum wage. As Harry Monk says, why would wages rise when you’ve got a willing pool of cheap disposable labour? Even if Brexit goes well and we get a government that gets to grips, the damage done is going to take another two generations to repair.

Exactly when did Thatcher ever say let’s leave the EU/Treaty of Rome including her administration signing up to the Single European Act in 1987 ?.Let alone on grounds of wanting to maximise wage levels for Brit workers.On that note smashing the power and bargaining strength of the unions ain’t exactly going to help in that either.

While wage levels themselves are a total red herring when demarcation lines have been removed and employers call for ever more ‘productivety’ from each worker as part of that agenda.To the point where one wage can cover the jobs of two or more different job title groups.So yeah right £? per hour often to cover more than one type of job and more than one hour’s worth of work expected to be completed in one hour.

65

I despair Carryfast. Thatcher was originally pro EEC, but later changed and became anti-EU when she found out what it was and where it was all heading. Thatcher left office in 1990. There’s a difference between the EEC and the EU, it’s what the referendum was about. The EU began with the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 under Major.

The unions lost their power when the focus switched from the working class to culture. The Schengen Treaty which allowed free movement didn’t mention European movement, it opened the floodgates to the world and you’re now seeing the consequences of a country flooded with cheap labour. What else did you expect? It’s amusing to see the remainers trying to pin the blame on everyone else but the EU. What are you going to do if suddenly the EU decide the UK transport industry is to be run by quotas like the fishing industry, or a new Working Time Directive of a maximum 30 hour week? What happened as we moved further into EU authoritarianism isn’t a surprise, it was inevitable. Everyone sank together.

66

I’ve been back in the UK for under a week and as a returning Brit I can tell you it’s a culture shock! :open_mouth:

What I’m seeing is a country that has lost its national identity and embraced open borders multiculturalism. Even the foreigners I’ve spoken to and who in the majority come from patriotic societies don’t like it. They’re not complaining about the work or pay, they’re complaining about a cultural void, a lack of values and cohesion in which diverse people have become things with no aims other than to make money. Stop and ask a native Brit for directions and I was met with a sort of fear. Who is he, what does he want from me? Many people intentionally avoided even eye contact. All this is going to get some getting used to.

The younger generation cheer it on because they’ve never known anything else and the remainers try to find excuses for it. It may well be true that many didn’t know the intricacies of what they voted for in the referendum, but I sense that the majority did know there’s something very wrong with the society they didn’t vote for and were led into.

Oh and having said that, I’ve had two addresses in the UK who applied to the DVLA for the D4 pack to be sent to them for me and after a month neither have received it. :confused:

67

Grandpa:
I despair Carryfast. Thatcher was originally pro EEC, but later changed and became anti-EU when she found out what it was and where it was all heading. Thatcher left office in 1990.

We signed up to the Single European Act in 1987 not after 1990.So tell us exactly which part of the Treaty of Rome didn’t she understand,what was FCO 30/1048 all about and what was it that Powell,Benn,Shore and Heffer,among others,all saw in the Treaty of Rome,but which she supposedly didn’t in campaigning enthusiastically to keep us tied to it.Let alone then also signing us up to the Single European Act.On that note so tell us exactly when did Thatcher ever say let’s withdraw from the scam when she was in office or even after.As opposed to Powell and we all know what happened to him.Not surprisingly being an ideologically Federalist party. :unamused:

68

Grandpa:
I’ve been back in the UK for under a week and as a returning Brit I can tell you it’s a culture shock! :open_mouth:

What I’m seeing is a country that has lost its national identity and embraced open borders multiculturalism. Even the foreigners I’ve spoken to and who in the majority come from patriotic societies don’t like it. They’re not complaining about the work or pay,

I guess that you never saw late 1960’s/early 70’s South London. :wink:

youtube.com/watch?v=JaozOjFzWOg

Now it’s probably the Poles singing something similar because they think they’ve moved to Bosnia. :laughing:

69

Carryfast:

Grandpa:
I despair Carryfast. Thatcher was originally pro EEC, but later changed and became anti-EU when she found out what it was and where it was all heading. Thatcher left office in 1990.

We signed up to the Single European Act in 1987 not after 1990.So tell us exactly which part of the Treaty of Rome didn’t she understand,what was FCO 30/1048 all about and what was it that Powell,Benn,Shore and Heffer,among others,all saw in the Treaty of Rome,but which she supposedly didn’t in campaigning enthusiastically to keep us tied to it.Let alone then also signing us up to the Single European Act.On that note so tell us exactly when did Thatcher ever say let’s withdraw from the scam when she was in office or even after.As opposed to Powell and we all know what happened to him.Not surprisingly being an ideologically Federalist party. :unamused:

You can’t blame this on Thatcher. Thatcher didn’t support Britain in a federalist Europe, or open borders. This all started under Major and really took off under Blair. The influx of Caribbean’s in the 60s was controlled immigration, not an open door policy. To understand this first understand the differences between the EEC and the EU.

“We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” Margaret Thatcher, Bruges speech, 1988.

There has never been a shortage of gullible British minority support for European lost causes. In the last century we had Moseley’s fascist black shirts, the communist party attracted large support in the inter-war years and there was no shortage of recruits for the Spanish anarchist International brigades. All the people involved in this promised a brave new world. Britain watched from the sidelines, but twice bled itself dry on European battlefields sorting out the resulting mess. This time it’s different. If Britain remains it will also collapse with this liberal fascist one European society, but this time there will be no one coming to the rescue.

70

Yesterday, I walked past an agency and saw some adverts for HGV drivers. Granted, it wasn’t a driving agency but an allsorts one. The bog standard across the board for wagon and drag plus artics was £10ph. I was on more than that 10 years ago. Now that tells me a few things. First, at a slightly higher rate than the minimum wage not many people are going to be spending money to pursue driving as a career. Second, if we stay in the EU employers are not going to put the hourly rate up, they’re going to want more cheap East European drivers. Third, as we oldies retire and die out the transport industry will become foreign cheap labour dominated. That might well be the bigger picture and not the, ‘What’s everyone complaining about, I’m doing OK’ voices in the wilderness.

We were all doing OK 10 to 15 years ago, but right across the forum its obvious things are not OK for the vast majority. Be very sure that if we’re going to be EU collectivized, wages are going to fall to the cheapest rate and not rise to the highest. That’s what we’re seeing now as we try to compete against cheap imported labour. That’s EU equality. I have German and Swedish friends and they say the same is happening there. The working class are fast becoming the new underclass and the politicians, bankers and corporations the new serf masters – that’s what the EU was designed to be, a bureaucracy of elites. There is no ‘bigger picture’, or things getting better eventually, what you now see is what you get and if we reamain in the EU it’s going to get worse.

71

Grandpa:
Yesterday, I walked past an agency and saw some adverts for HGV drivers. Granted, it wasn’t a driving agency but an allsorts one. The bog standard across the board for wagon and drag plus artics was £10ph. I was on more than that 10 years ago. Now that tells me a few things. First, at a slightly higher rate than the minimum wage not many people are going to be spending money to pursue driving as a career. Second, if we stay in the EU employers are not going to put the hourly rate up, they’re going to want more cheap East European drivers. Third, as we oldies retire and die out the transport industry will become foreign cheap labour dominated. That might well be the bigger picture and not the, ‘What’s everyone complaining about, I’m doing OK’ voices in the wilderness.

We were all doing OK 10 to 15 years ago, but right across the forum its obvious things are not OK for the vast majority. Be very sure that if we’re going to be EU collectivized, wages are going to fall to the cheapest rate and not rise to the highest. That’s what we’re seeing now as we try to compete against cheap imported labour. That’s EU equality. I have German and Swedish friends and they say the same is happening there. The working class are fast becoming the new underclass and the politicians, bankers and corporations the new serf masters – that’s what the EU was designed to be, a bureaucracy of elites. There is no ‘bigger picture’, or things getting better eventually, what you now see is what you get and if we reamain in the EU it’s going to get worse.

Didn’t you say you were a teacher ?

10 years ago you were on more than £10 an hour ? Was this specialised Transport ?

72

Didn’t you say you were a teacher ?

10 years ago you were on more than £10 an hour ? Was this specialised Transport ?

I was a teacher abroad since 2009. Previously for many years I worked for agencies as a driver at BT (curtainsiders) and Sundays for the supermarkets (box and fridges). My night rate at BT was around £11.50ph if I remember rightly, with o/t after nine hours. I still have an old P60 left over from those days which I’m looking at now and my gross earnings for the year 2007/8 was £37,602 which includes two different agencies and the w/end work – combined tax of £6854 leaving a take home of 30,748; a weekly take home average of £591.

73

Grandpa:

Carryfast:
…

You can’t blame this on Thatcher. Thatcher didn’t support Britain in a federalist Europe, or open borders. This all started under Major and really took off under Blair. The influx of Caribbean’s in the 60s was controlled immigration, not an open door policy. To understand this first understand the differences between the EEC and the EU.

That’s codswallop. A great deal of immigration occurred in the 50s, and the various Immigration Acts resulted from the political problem that came to a head in the early 70s. The immigration that occurred in the 50s and 60s wasn’t limited so far as I know by any number cap or other controls.

And whilst immigration settled down in the 70s as a result, it first started to grow again under Thatcher (though obviously when 1 in 10 were unemployed in the early 80s, there wasn’t much draw in the early stages of the Thatcher government).

I agree with you that Thatcher didn’t agree with federalism - predominantly she didn’t agree with any democratic controls on the economy. Her purpose for joining the EU was to open up the marketplace in which the rich have one-pound-one-vote, and destroy the democratic controls that existed over the economy in the post-war period.

She was not anti-immigration - the Tories never are, because access to a larger reserve of labour from poorer countries holds wages down and erodes worker bargaining power.

74

Grandpa:

Carryfast:
We signed up to the Single European Act in 1987 not after 1990.So tell us exactly which part of the Treaty of Rome didn’t she understand,what was FCO 30/1048 all about and what was it that Powell,Benn,Shore and Heffer,among others,all saw in the Treaty of Rome,but which she supposedly didn’t in campaigning enthusiastically to keep us tied to it.Let alone then also signing us up to the Single European Act.On that note so tell us exactly when did Thatcher ever say let’s withdraw from the scam when she was in office or even after.As opposed to Powell and we all know what happened to him.Not surprisingly being an ideologically Federalist party. :unamused:

You can’t blame this on Thatcher. Thatcher didn’t support Britain in a federalist Europe, or open borders. This all started under Major and really took off under Blair. The influx of Caribbean’s in the 60s was controlled immigration, not an open door policy. To understand this first understand the differences between the EEC and the EU.

“We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” Margaret Thatcher, Bruges speech, 1988.

I’m not going to allow you and those like you to laughably conveniently try to brush her part in all this under the carpet.

So tell us exactly what were Heath and her on about here and how do you explain the difference between her support of Heath.As opposed to Powell if as you say she was supposedly against a Federal Europe ?.While it’s obvious that it couldn’t possibly have been ignorance on her part because Powell among lots of others knew exactly what the Treaty of Rome meant.Just as she and Heath did to the point of burying FCO 30/1048.

So define exactly what’s meant here by the words ‘‘IN’’ and ‘‘EUROPE’’ within the statement ‘Britain IN Europe’ ?.

As opposed to ‘OUT’ which Powell was obviously campaigning for ?.

IE how do you account for the ‘difference’ in which Thatcher is clearly campaigning for a Federal Europe on the usual bs grounds of dependence and security as all the rest of the Remainers.While Powell is equally clearly campaigning on the basis that he knows we are signing up to a Federal Europe at that point and so does Heath.IE the European nation states are obsolete.Bearing in mind that this is all part of the campaign leading up to the 1975 referendum.

youtube.com/watch?v=jwdg7qVoVXk

youtube.com/watch?v=CuZrzwm6CJs

youtube.com/watch?v=kqPp0rb3vio

As for just a European trading bloc isn’t that what we already had within EFTA ?.

As for Thatcher’s laughable lies in 1988 having happily signed us up to the Single European Act one year previously. :unamused:

75

That’s codswallop. A great deal of immigration occurred in the 50s, and the various Immigration Acts resulted from the political problem that came to a head in the early 70s. The immigration that occurred in the 50s and 60s wasn’t limited so far as I know by any number cap or other controls.

And whilst immigration settled down in the 70s as a result, it first started to grow again under Thatcher (though obviously when 1 in 10 were unemployed in the early 80s, there wasn’t much draw in the early stages of the Thatcher government).

I agree with you that Thatcher didn’t agree with federalism - predominantly she didn’t agree with any democratic controls on the economy. Her purpose for joining the EU was to open up the marketplace in which the rich have one-pound-one-vote, and destroy the democratic controls that existed over the economy in the post-war period.

She was not anti-immigration - the Tories never are, because access to a larger reserve of labour from poorer countries holds wages down and erodes worker bargaining power.

Well, it’s not really, is it? How far back in history do you want to go when laying the blame for an open door EU immigration policy? Immigration has always been controlled in the west, it’s the Schengen Treaty which dissolved European borders and allowed mass-immigration. Thatcher was laissez-faire capitalist (unregulated) – anything goes and so yes, she can be blamed for de-nationalisation, but that has nothing to do with immigration, or for that matter ‘democratic controls over the economy’, whatever that means.

You can’t have a society of free movement and then complain that cheap labour dominates. This wasn’t happening 30 years ago. By and large belonging to the EEC was a good idea, joining a political EU is not. People in 1975 voted to join a common market, the EU has gone way beyond that.

76

Rjan:
I agree with you that Thatcher didn’t agree with federalism

I’m sure that ‘agreeing with Federalism’ is an essential part of Con Party membership unless they intend to remove the Unionist part of the Party title.As Powell found out.The fact that they might need to lie occasionally by dressing up Federalism as something else,such as burying FCO 30/1048 and telling the electorate it’s only a ‘Common Market’ and David Davis among others pretending that they are Leavers goes with the territory.

Now awaits the lie from Grandpa that it’s ok to be a UK Federalist but not an EU one.Which is also the flaw in UKIP’s position and probably why UKIP won’t stand for a Confederal Europe and UK instead.Which would be the obvious solution to all this. :unamused:

77

Grandpa:
it’s the Schengen Treaty which dissolved European borders and allowed mass-immigration. Thatcher was laissez-faire capitalist (unregulated) – anything goes and so yes, she can be blamed for de-nationalisation, but that has nothing to do with immigration, or for that matter ‘democratic controls over the economy’, whatever that means.

You can’t have a society of free movement and then complain that cheap labour dominates. This wasn’t happening 30 years ago. By and large belonging to the EEC was a good idea, joining a political EU is not. People in 1975 voted to join a common market, the EU has gone way beyond that.

We’re not a member of the Schengen Zone but the EU free movement rules still apply to all EU member states.IE Schengen is a red herring because for EU free movement purposes the borders are irrelevant regardless.While Switzerland isn’t an EU member state nor EEA but ironically it is a Schengen member state and kow tows to all EU free movement rules.

As for joining the EEC what’s good about us plunging into a massive trade deficit and an economy based on Brit jobs for German workers. :unamused:

78

Why would you assume even for a moment I’m a Federalist of any kind? I’m about as anti-collectivist as it’s possible to get. Why do you keep referring to politicians who are a part of history? The European Union didn’t exist under Heath or Thatcher. What don’t you understand about Thatcher being anti-Federalist? Here it is again.

“We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” Margaret Thatcher, Bruges speech, 1988. Thatcher sensed what was going to happen 30 years ago and was beginning to warn against it.

What don’t you understand about wanting to join an economic block in 1975 and refusing to join a Federalist Europe in 2016? ‘Britain in Europe’ meant joining an economic block, not open borders and ruled by Brussels. The first video title was the clue, it wasn’t about the EU, it was about a common market. Do you understand the difference between an economic trading block (economic market) and a political union, because if you don’t no wonder you’re all over the place on this one.

What the 2016 referendum was about has nothing to do with the EEC, Thatcher or Heath, or anything else that happened nearly 40 years ago. :unamused:

79

Let’s try and simplify this. In the 70s as Britain lost its colonies and industrial power, it seemed like a good idea to join an economic trading block of leading European economies, a common market. That’s what the 1975 referendum was about. By 1992 and the introduction of the Maastricht Treaty the EEC became the EU, a political union over riding sovereign nations and that’s what the majority of people voted against in 2016.

The open borders Schengen Treaty, or the euro, or a European parliament has nothing to do with the former EEC, it’s something completely different. You can’t blame Thatcher or Heath for the EU, it didn’t even exist when they were in office. When Thatcher and Heath talked of Europe they meant a common market, not a Federalist Europe although they knew where it was heading and in the quote above Thatcher warned against it.

The EEC and EU are two separate issues, two separate entities with different aims and ambitions. They’re not the same thing. Until you understand that you’ll continue to dig back through history to try to find the answer to something that didn’t exist before 1992.

80

Grandpa:
Let’s try and simplify this. In the 70s as Britain lost its colonies and industrial power, it seemed like a good idea to join an economic trading block of leading European economies, a common market. That’s what the 1975 referendum was about. By 1992 and the introduction of the Maastricht Treaty the EEC became the EU, a political union over riding sovereign nations and that’s what the majority of people voted against in 2016.

The open borders Schengen Treaty, or the euro, or a European parliament has nothing to do with the former EEC, it’s something completely different. You can’t blame Thatcher or Heath for the EU, it didn’t even exist when they were in office. When Thatcher and Heath talked of Europe they meant a common market, not a Federalist Europe although they knew where it was heading and in the quote above Thatcher warned against it.

The EEC and EU are two separate issues, two separate entities with different aims and ambitions. They’re not the same thing. Until you understand that you’ll continue to dig back through history to try to find the answer to something that didn’t exist before 1992.

Try starting here :- ukandeu.ac.uk/fact-figures/why- … t-started/